CONTENTION Map

Events and News

The ‘CONTENTION’ (CONtrol of DeTENTION) project’s final conference took place at the Fondation Universitaire in Brussels on the 12th of December last. The project, which was co-funded by the European Union in the framework of the European Return Fund, convened the final conference to present its research results and to further discuss the implications of the research. The programme for the final conference can be found here.

Before gathering for the final conference, the project’s completed questionnaires, which were written by the national experts in collaboration with the national judges, were uploaded to the CONTENTION website. Those questionnaires are available here. The project’s synthesis report was also uploaded and is available here.

The legitimacy of pre-removal detention, as authorised by the EU Return Directive, depends upon judicial control as the ultimate guarantor that detention will be as short as possible and be maintained only for the purpose of removal. The judiciary is thus challenged to ensure that detention is necessary and proportional in its application. The project CONTENTION (CONtrol of deTENTION) examines the different dimensions of the lawfulness of detention with differing practices and differing forms of implementation at national and European level.

The project CONTENTION (CONTrol of deTENTION), co-financed by the European Union in the framework of the European Return Fund, is implemented by the Migration Policy Centre at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in partnership with the Odysseus Network (ULB). The main objective of the project is to inform, analyse and compare the EU Return Directive based judicial control of pre-removal detention of third-country nationals in 11 EU Member States (AT, BG, BE, CZ, DE, FR, IT, NL, SK, SI and UK) with a view to improving it, in particular regarding the control of the length of detention.

The project REDIAL (REturn DIALogue), co-financed by the European Union in the framework of the European Return Fund, is implemented by the Migration Policy Centre at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in partnership with the Odysseus Network (ULB). The main objective of the project is to foster judicial cooperation regarding return cases by establishing a functioning European networks of Judges and Academic experts from 25 Member States, with a view to ensure the proper implementation of the EU Return Directive, as well as a comprehensive knowledge platform comprising of national and CJEU landmarks judgments, their legal analysis and the pertinent general academic writings.

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CONTENTION Project

The project CONTENTION (Control of Detention), co-funded by the European Union in the framework of the European Return Fund”, is implemented by the Migration Policy Centre at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in partnership with the Odysseus Network (ULB).
The main objective of the project is to inform, analyse and compare the EU Return Directive based judicial control of pre-removal detention of third-country nationals in 11 EU Member States (AT, BG, BE, CZ, DE, FR, IT, NL, SK, SI and UK) with a view to improving it, in particular regarding the control of the length of detention.
The project seeks to identify and exchange best practices among legal experts and practitioners. More generally, CONTENTION aims to lay the foundation for the first European network of national judges hearing return cases, and to prepare the ground for further judicial cooperation and training of national judges in this field.